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Politics: Why They Don't Hate Us by Mark LeVine

WHY THEY DON’T HATE US: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evilby Mark LeVine

Oneworld £16.99 pp430

America, it is now clear, had no sane or viable political programme for post-war Iraq. Indeed, it had no sane or viable programme for the invasion itself. Having supported the idea, at least, of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, I knew within 24 hours of the war’s beginning that it would fail. Where were the field hospitals treating Iraqi children? Where were the diplomats, lawyers, PRs, even film and music stars mounting visible programmes of co-operation? Where was the hearts-and-minds campaign that should have been the point of the whole exercise? Where, most importantly, was the humility?

They weren’t there because they weren’t thought necessary. Deep within the American administration’s psyche was the belief that, if you hit any system hard enough, it will flip into liberal democracy — “the end of